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Hello, dear readers of Valery Kharlamov’s blog! I seem to be doing a lot of things to achieve my goal, but as a result, either I don’t get what I wanted so much, or it happens when it’s no longer necessary. Are these words about you? If yes, then it’s time to learn what personal effectiveness is and how to improve it.
What it is?
So:
Personal effectiveness is the effectiveness of a person, that is, an indicator of how quickly he is able to realize his goal, and with minimal costs, both efforts and other resources.
It may concern not only work, therefore the key word is “personal”. To determine how successful you are in this business, simply draw the wheel of the balance of life. This way you can figure out which areas of your life need attention and which areas you can loosen control a bit. What this wheel looks like, and how to make it correctly, you will learn from this article.
At the very least, in order to get results very quickly, you can simply evaluate the process of implementing your plans and goals on a ten-point scale. Subscribe to social updates networks or email. Soon I will publish a test in which you can determine the level of your effectiveness.
I am updating this article, here you will find a personal effectiveness test.
Enhancement Methods
1. Purpose
To achieve your goals, it is important to start by defining them. After all, not everyone knows how to «highlight» their needs, plus to correctly outline plans and priorities. When you understand where you want to arrive, it is important to look around and understand where you are at the moment. After that, you can already choose the means by which you will move. And when you go with the flow, you will never get to a place where it will be good.
So, what are the methods of correct goal setting — you will learn from the article «How to set goals correctly in order to achieve success in any activity.»
2. Biological rhythms
Find out what time your peak activity is. Yes, everyone has to adapt to a certain work schedule, but in other matters you have the opportunity to pick up hours when you feel a surge of strength and vigor. In the article about biological rhythms, we talked about the existing cycles in everyone’s life.
So, depending on them, every month you feel an incredible rise in strength, then you begin to notice that you are no longer so active and healthy, after which you can rest even after a minimal load. It also affects the time of day, someone is more efficient in the late afternoon, someone in the early morning.
3. Two minutes
There is also an increase in productivity at work if you take into account the two-minute rule. It lies in the fact that things that take no more than 120 seconds to complete should be done instantly. Then you won’t have to worry about the accumulated little things. Although, because of seemingly trifles, very serious consequences can happen, for example, you forgot to reply to a message or add an important event to your calendar.
Usually it seems that such things will definitely be remembered, only in life there is such a series of events that it is not always possible to keep up with them. Therefore, it is better to do something right away and calmly take on longer-term work.
4. Schedule table
Get yourself a table (for example, a Google sheet) in which you indicate all your habits and plans for the day. Such a thing is very useful, because you can track what is done and what is not yet, what areas there are small difficulties with, and how your well-being and condition changes during the week. To make it clearer, I will give an example:
It is better to indicate all 4 weeks per month on the page, so it will be easier to track what is stable and what is not very good. It is also recommended to highlight the same answers with color in order to better concentrate and notice the necessary nuances. Habit management will help to systematize your activities, relieve the feeling that chaos is happening and all things overlap.
You do not have to remember what else needs to be done today, and what you have not touched for several days.
5. Differentiation
Be sure to break a large task into small subtasks. To put it metaphorically, I want to say that it is impossible to eat an elephant at a time, but every day it is quite possible to master a piece. Let’s say you dream of learning ten-finger touch typing on a keyboard or learning the basics of calligraphy. But, given the employment at work and domestic issues at home, you have absolutely no time to go to full-fledged courses.
But this does not mean that you should give up desire. In the chart above, set aside 20-30 minutes for your goal and every day you will get closer and closer to it.
6. Inventory
Take a thorough inventory of your activities throughout the day. Perhaps there are those that do not benefit, but only “eat up” your time. Just think about how much you could do if, say, you stopped playing virtual games, “sit” on social networks or watch TV.
Human psychology is such that the emotions that you get through these activities are short-term and superficial. There is a Pareto law that will help you rank the success of all your daily tasks. This law is also called the “80/20 rule”, in connection with which, 20% of our efforts give 80% of success in the result, and vice versa — 80% of the efforts made in the end give only 20% of the expected and justified results.
In this regard, write a list of all your tasks and responsibilities, identifying which category each item belongs to. Then exclude from your activities those that require maximum effort, but in the end you get not as much as you would like.
You can learn more about this law here.
7. Someone else’s experience
Rely on the experience of other people. Take a closer look at how your or your acquaintances leaders cope with difficult tasks, how they manage to move forward and manage to devote time to hobbies, family … In addition, it is important to communicate as much as possible with people who have achieved success and were able to realize themselves.
Connections help speed up some process, which increases not only the effectiveness of your activities, but in general, the implementation of plans and desires into reality.
8. Diary
Make it a rule every Monday (or what day your work week starts) to ask yourself the question: “If today was the last day of the work week (more simply, Friday), then what tasks would I like to see completed as a result?”.
Let’s say: “I finished reading the book”, “I signed up the child for the pool” and “I prepared everything necessary for celebrating my wife’s birthday”. By the way, such an interesting way of planning can be used to set goals for a month or a year. And in general, again, in the same Google, keep a to-do list. Plan absolutely every month, gradually adding or deleting some dreams and tasks.
And then it will become clearer to you whether it is worth signing up for first aid courses in January, and starting to learn French in March. And in general, evaluate whether they were able to read all the literature planned for September — December for advanced training.
9. Motivation
Do not forget about the right motivation. If you do not find good reasons why you should move forward no matter what, there will be no energy for action at all. And you know how hard it is to force yourself to do something, especially day after day. What performance can we talk about then?
A motivated person will not stop at any obstacles, even if at times it will seem that it is impossible to achieve the goal. Therefore, it is worth looking at the article “TOP 10 ways to increase motivation when you don’t know what to do to increase it” in order to always get what you want.
10. Discipline is the queen of achievement
If you do not work out for yourself a regime according to which you will follow every day, then no skills and abilities will help you achieve your plans. This is especially true of the daily routine, waking up late — you really do not have time to do anything. Why will you begin to experience stress, which may well lead to depression, the feeling that you are a loser and are not capable of anything.
It’s worth at least once “pitying” yourself and ignoring what was planned — and the whole system will fail. Rest is important, but on the days when you have scheduled important things — no concessions. Here you already have to connect willpower, thanks to which it becomes possible to complete what you started.
If you do not have the glory of a strong-willed person, then it’s okay, this is not a sentence, you just have to make an effort, and you can develop it as much as you want. And the article “Strengthening and educating your willpower and character” will help you with this.